Susan D. Medalie, at 85

Susan D. Medalie, 85, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Hull, loving wife and mother, lawyer and aficionado of politics, died from sepsis on May 9, 2024.

Susan was the cherished wife for 61 years of Richard “Rick” Medalie (deceased), and mother of Samuel and Daniel (Diana). She also is survived by her brother, George S. Abrams, twin grandchildren Clara and Benjamin Medalie, nieces Sarah Abrams and Rebecca Abrams (Nathan Benn), and grand-nephew Tobias Benn. Her beloved sister was the late Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Ruth I. Abrams.

Mrs. Medalie was born in Newton, was a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and George Washington University, and earned a law degree from American University.

In her 20s, Mrs. Medalie moved with her husband and two sons to Washington, D.C., where for 40 years she immersed herself in political advocacy, event planning, and fundraising. Among her proudest projects were helping to launch the U.S. Holocaust Museum and serving as executive director of the Women’s Campaign Fund, a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of women in public office.

Upon retirement, Susan and Rick moved to Hull, to the same house on P Street that her father, Sam, had bought in 1942. Mrs. Medalie’s grandfather, an immigrant from Russia, had first moved to Hull in the late 1800s, and her own father was born and raised there before settling in Newton. She had spent every summer of her life in Hull from the age of four. Over many decades, the old house had become a summer way station for siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins intent on lounging on the beach, eating lobsters and steamers at Jake’s, and strolling the boardwalk at Paragon Park. New England clam chowder was the only soup allowed at Mrs. Medalie’s home!

Now in Hull full time, Mrs. Medalie immersed herself in the local community, becoming a shrewd bargain hunter at the Hingham auction house and a passionate member of the Hull Garden Club. Life was peaceful. And then COVID hit. In quick and tragic succession, Mr. Medalie succumbed to the virus, and Mrs. Medalie’s home was destroyed when a pipe burst, flooding the entire first floor. Grief-stricken, Mrs. Medalie agreed (with some trepidation) to move to Cleveland, near her younger son, Daniel.

She made new friends – noting wryly that Midwesterners thought the same things as people from the East Coast, they just didn’t say them out loud – attended concerts, argued politics, and wrote dozens of book reviews for her community newsletter. She also discovered a consuming new passion for art, and within short order produced a solo show of paintings and collage. It was still hanging on the building’s walls when Mrs. Medalie died.

For those who knew her, Susan was unforgettable. She had a mischievous smile, a halo of curly reddish-brown hair that turned snow-white in her later years, and a singular and elegant sense of style – whether attending a D.C. gala or a trip to the thrift store. Dynamic, outspoken, flashy, and sardonic, she could be a tempest one moment and a comic the next. Politics was her life blood. She was fiercely loyal to those she loved most: her friends, her home in Hull, and above all, her family. For the guestbook, visit www.brown-forward.com